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Letters

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State Bar Should Address Why
Fewer People Hire Lawyers

In the September 2008 Wisconsin Lawyer, State Bar President
Diane Diel wrote an
excellent column in which she pointed out that fewer members of the
public are hiring lawyers
for their legal matters and instead more people are handling legal
matters for
themselves, even in the courtroom. Diel went on to warn that lawyers
must work on increasing
client access to affordable legal services or risk becoming irrelevant.
In my view, she is
correct, and perhaps the causes of this legal crisis need to be
addressed as well; so
here goes.

Unlike the health care profession, which has limited the number
of doctors and
nurses by controlling the number of slots in medical schools and nursing
schools, the
legal profession has sat idle, while law schools have cranked out many
more lawyers than
the market can support. Again unlike the health care profession, which
relies on most of
its funding from private insurance and the government (Medicare,
Medicaid, veterans'
and government health programs, and so on), the legal profession tries
to rely on the
ability of people to pay their legal bills themselves. Furthermore,
unlike heavily
unionized professions, many lawyers are struggling without benefits and
job security, and they
must cope with a marketplace that has more lawyers than the marketplace
can afford to
support. These economic imbalances have crippled the legal profession,
driving many lawyers
to seek employment outside of law, and creating the tragic situation in
which much of
the public wants to use, but cannot afford to hire, a lawyer. Other
lawyers struggle to
pay their own bills, often without health benefits, and they too suffer
under the
existing chaos in the Wisconsin legal market.

If we wish to address and correct the situation, then the State
Bar must take
five immediate steps. First, it should lobby for legal programs within
Wisconsin that
mirror the government-provided health care programs, which have so
benefited health care
employees and have increased access to medical services among the
general public. Second,
the State Bar should promote affordable legal insurance programs,
voluntary for both
the lawyers and the public who buys the insurance, which will bring in
more clients to
the Bar members and make legal services more affordable for the clients.
Third, the State
Bar should obtain better, more affordable medical and dental plans for
its members using
the leverage of group purchasing to drive down the costs for its
members. Fourth, the
State Bar should try to use its best efforts to reduce the number of
lawyers being churned
out by our law schools, which has created a tremendous marketplace
imbalance between
supply and demand. Fifth, the State Bar should encourage members of the
public to hire
lawyers, the same way that the
Realtors® Association is now advertising on TV and radio
to do
the same for its members and the public.

I respectfully believe that our profession is in crisis. We have
lost a generation
of young lawyers who have left the profession for the above reasons, and
we have lost
a generation of clients, who now increasingly regard legal services as
too costly
and, sadly, irrelevant. Let's fight to defend our profession, to better
our own
collective situations, and to make our services more affordable to the
public.